


god is god, and i am me

by ClassicDazel



Category: South Park
Genre: Amnesia, Cult of Cthulhu, Cults, Gore, Kenny McCormick-centric, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, don't mind the ship tags, like really, there is barely romance don't @ me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-08-26 20:16:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClassicDazel/pseuds/ClassicDazel
Summary: This is the story of how I died. Don’t worry, though! (And, uh, spoiler alert). I came back.More spoilers: it wasn’t pleasant.





	1. day, after day, after night

**Author's Note:**

> here i am, back at my shit. what a life, huh?
> 
> okay so, first of all, i wanna make this clear, the ship tags? bullshit. sure, i put them because there are some things of said ships, but don't expect a 100,000 words story about how love is super duper. i'm here for the tragedy, for the weird-ass and plot, fuck romance

This is the story of how I died. Don’t worry, though! (And, uh, spoiler alert). I came back.

I have revived so many times, and I have died in so many different ways at this point I should become a screenwriter of gore horror films. But it’s okay. As a child, death was like the dentist or a surprise exam: it was unexpected, I went into a panic attack and I threw a tantrum each time it happened. Somewhere in my adolescence, between my 14 and 15 more or less, death went from ‘shit!’ to just ‘well, shit.’

It’s amazing how different something can sound by just adding a word, right? Like, ‘whatever you say’ it’s not the same as ‘whatever you say, _man_.’

Well, dying was a routine, and nothing more. Every day it was: get up, have breakfast, go to school, hang out with friends, repeat. Instead of sleeping, I died; which is the same, except your alarm clock is the sweet, ethereal, and unreal feeling that your heart starts beating again after being still for so long. Man, do I love that feeling.

This new and beautiful indifference included the attitude of my friends towards my deaths as well--which was non-existent, by the way. I went from swallowing the rancour down to just throwing it with the other repressed feelings I don’t need. Suck it, feelings!

Which is more, I was even glad they weren’t able of remembering my deaths. Can you imagine what a pain in the ass it would be having everybody asking you the same questions about death, pain and afterlife again and again? Those questions are for Jesus, thank you very much. I was content with ignorance. I liked ignorance.

My death, or at least the latest one, happened on a Saturday night, in the woods, during a camping trip. If I were a hot chick--and not an equally hot guy--this would be the plot of half the terror films ever. Do you hear me, Hollywood? You need me.

For the occasion, it was just me, Stan, Kyle and Cartman; as always, as nature requested it. We finally had the age to make a proper campfire in the forest, not feet away from the house of one of us, and while we alternated cheap beers with a generous liquor bottle, we faced the hardest challenge of our young lives: telling a scary story that was actually story. It was Cartman’s turn, and none of us had many hopes on him.

“...And then, when the woman opened the rusty door of the old, wooden shack,” he was narrating with his best try of a shady voice (and what the hell, Cartman nailed it) while he held the lantern of his mobile under his chin, “she--”

“Wait,” Stan interrupted, holding a hand as if he wanted to ask a question in class, “the shack is made of wood but the door is made of metal?”

“What?” Cartman blinked. “No, that makes no fuckin’ sense.”

Kyle shook his head gently. “Wood can’t get rusty, you moron.” Cartman wanted like he wanted to argue, but even him was able to see it wasn’t the best thing for his reputation. The one he made up, that’s it.

“Shit,” he muttered with a swig of beer. His whispering voice and the contrast of light and shadow on his face were gone. “Well, what’s the equivalent?”

“Rotten?” I suggested in an inquisitive tone despite I knew I was right. That’s the tone people use when they don’t want to sound like smartasses.

“Yeah, rotten.” Cartman cleared his throat and recreated the spooky climate. It didn’t have the same effect anymore. “When the woman opened the _rotten_ door of the old, wooden shack, she saw him there, sharpening a rusty knife. He--”

“You were going to say rusty twice in the same sentence?” Kyle cut him off again, making Cartman groan and drop his head. “That’s bad narrative, dude.”

“Kahl, can you, uh, I don’t know, maybe fuck off and let me finish my story, please?” Honestly, I don’t know what Stan and Kyle did to not burst on laughter right there. As for me, I bit the inside of my cheek and pictured my grandpa naked.

It was an accidental tradition--an unspoken deal--messing with Cartman whenever he was trying to tell a story and seeing how he got more and more frustrated until the yelling and the swearing started.

Kyle, who was casually covering his mouth with his face probably to hide the fact that the inner laughter was killing him, made a motion with his hand, and Cartman went on. He had a frown impressed on his face now.

“When the woman opened the rotten door of the old, wooden shack, she saw him there, sharpening a rusty hunting knife,” he repeated quicker. He wasn’t even bothering in making it spooky. “He turned around to look at her in the eyes, and she finally saw the horrid unexpected true: he was…” he waited for a few seconds, looking at each one of us individually with his hands in front of his head, but we were not going to cut him off this time, “…a ginger.”

The reaction was immediate. Stan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, Kyle groaned and rolled his eyes, and I booed his bad storytelling skills and threw him my empty beer. Cartman was genuinely surprised by the bad reception and threw his hands up as if _we_ were the lost cause.

“What? We know vampires and werewolves are not real. I’m trying to be realistic here you guys,” went his argument.

“Okay, Cartman,” Stan clapped his hands and reached out for a beer; his first beer of the night, actually--he had been hitting the bottle, “you lose, whatever this was. Now you have to go and pick up more branches for the fire.” He pushed a scorched branch towards the fire with his foot. It was dying faster than we expected, and the cool air hit us as suddenly as the realization.

“Screw you, I’m not going alone,” Cartman protested, with some pathetic noise between a whimper and a growl. “What if a bear attacks me or something?”

“Then we will treat him with a beer,” I joked. Cartman stared and I shrugged.

“Don’t be a baby, fatass,” Kyle then said, the slightest hint of a smirk on his face. “There are no bears in this woods.”

Stan took a swig before patting the short log he shared with Kyle. “No, dude. Haven’t you heard the news?” His eyes roamed us all. “The next town’s zoo’s bear has broken out, and they haven’t found him yet. They believe he is around this woods.”

I knew that was a filthy lie, of course, but I also knew Cartman never watched the local news, and so he would believe anything Stan told him. He pretended he was not affected by it, but his face was pale and his hands twitched in such a slight way it was almost unnoticeable.

He was about to say something when I stood up and stretched my limbs. “Alright, alright, I’ll go with you. I have to take a leak anyway.”

Cartman stood up and slipped his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he began walking. “You’d better have your pants on when we’re back, you guys.”

They scowled and flipped him off, but he didn’t see it. I waved goodbye and followed Cartman as he made his way among the slim and tall trees.

I still could hear Stan and Kyle when they began to chatter, something about how Cartman was a jerk, but he decided to walk a little further before speaking up.

“Do you think they’ll ever be a thing?” he asked me.

I kept my eyes on the ground, careful not to trip on some loose root and marvelling in the way dry leaves crunched below my stuffy boots. “It’s hardly a possibility, but who knows? Life’s a bitch.”

Cartman snickered. “It’d be awesome. If I rip on them as a couple instead of individually I’d have a lot of free time.” Of course, there couldn’t be another reason.

“You’re so full of shit, Cartman.”

“At least I don’t live in it.” He muttered that instead of barking it, so I guessed he didn’t want to argue any longer.

We walked for at least five minutes in silence. Cartman had the lantern, so I didn’t have more choice than walking behind him and having his broad back blocking the view. We took our sweet time to remember why we were there in the first place, but finding good branches was easy and fast. When we were sure we couldn’t carry any more, Cartman stopped on his tracks and breathed out heavily.

“You had to take a leak, right? Hurry up and let’s go back.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Honestly, I just wanted to stretch my legs. At some point, I wanted to disappear and do noises to scare the shit out of Cartman, but the moment just passed. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to be alone with a bear.”

“There is no bear, Kenny!” he snapped. The branches wiggled a bit on his arms. “You assholes just want to fuck with me.”

I would have done something with my hands had them not been occupied. Instead, I just shrugged and turned around. “If you say so. I’m just glad we’re going to sleep next to you. We all know the bear will go straight to the fleshiest one.”

“Oh yeah? Well I heard bears tend to go after girls on their periods, so I wouldn’t be so su--”

Suddenly, Cartman shut up and the light in front of me on which my shadow inhabited was gone. I took a few seconds to assimilate the seemingly endless darkness hovering forward. Today it was a moonless night.

I turned around. I could make the large silhouette of Cartman, and he was still, his head tilted and struggling not to drop the wood. “Cartman, it’s not funny.” There was no point in frowning if he couldn’t see me, so I didn’t. “Turn on the light.”

I saw how he shook the lantern with a single hand. That, of he was asking for another drink to an invisible barman. Then he hit the bottom against a trunk several times before cursing under his breath.

“Cartman…”

I heard his next words in my head even before he spoke them, “It’s broken.”

Now I swear out loud.

Just in case, I snatched the lantern away from his hands and tried to get it working myself to no avail.

“Fan-fucking-tastic, fatass!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” he complained, backing away a few steps. “The batteries just died!”

I scoffed and gave my back to him. “Okay, use your phone or something. Less is nothing.”

“I can’t, I left it at the campsite.” Because, knowing I didn’t have one, _of course_ he did.

This time I didn’t even bother in berating him. I kicked a rock or a dry pineapple or whatever was at my feet and began walking, Cartman striding close to me.

It would have been alright if we had just walked straight, but we had changed course just slightly several times for the pettiest reasons--there was a large tree on the way, we didn’t want to step on a turd, we just felt like it. As far as we knew, we could have ended up next to the campsite without even realizing it. Still, we decided to go forward.

Not our brightest idea, to be honest.

 

We walked for about forty minutes, but fuck me if that didn’t feel like four hours. We said we wouldn’t drop the branches we had collected, but before I could fully realize Cartman was walking with his hands on his pockets. I scolded him, but it’s not like I could actually force him to go back and get them back, so I just dealt with it.

“I’m hungry,” Cartman eventually said, surprising none. When I didn’t give him an answer, he caught up with me and nudged my shoulder. “Hey, Kenny, I’m hungry.” Cartman was no higher than me, but he was broader, thus stronger--I felt it in the way I stumbled and almost fell.

“So?”

“So,” he paused for a few seconds, “do something about it.”

“Why me?”

“Because it’s your fault we’re lost, duh.”

I clenched and unclenched my fists. I was hungry too, and mad about the fact that we were in fact lost, and as pleasant as it was the smell of wet mud and smoke clung in our clothes was making me sick; but most of all I was not in the mood to deal with that fucking fatass. I couldn’t lose my temper, though. If I were to fight with Cartman, chances were I was going to end up with something twisted and/or broken, and then I couldn’t trust in him to carry me all the time, could I?

Ugh, I just wanted this day to be over. I even began looking lazily for something I could kill myself with.

Cartman chuckled. “Silence is consent, Ken.”

_Yeah, yeah, whatever. Eat a dry pineapple and choke, asshole._

I was, in fact, about to say that. I even had given him a disdain glance, but the first ‘yeah’ was drowned by a sound that froze our blood and anchored our feet to the ground. It was a roar, we had no doubt of that, but that was not the roar of something trying to hunt you.

Something was dying. Slowly and painfully.

“What the fuck was that?” Cartman whispered and he grabbed my arm.

I hushed him and pointed forwards. His eyes widened when he saw the same I did: light ahead. It flickered and waved as if trying to lure us closer; we believed it was fire. And as we got closer, and the low growls went on so strong and weak at the same time it echoed in our chests, it became obvious whoever was there, they weren’t Stan and Kyle.

We hid behind a wide tree. Ferns and bushes blocked the view. I began to gesture Cartman with my hands: _let’s check out and then we go_.

He seemed hesitant, first looking at his shoes and then over his shoulder, and I can’t say I blamed the guy this time--if he wanted to leave, I wouldn’t have stopped him. But he gave me a shaky thumbs-up.

I told him to crouch. We crawled towards the bushes, damp dirt, leaves and pebbles staining our hands. The rumble of the beast and the chatter of some people were throttling the noise we were doing. We kneeled uncomfortably and dug our hands in the bush to make a tiny peephole.

The campfire was huge. It surprised me we hadn’t noticed it before, but perhaps the crown of leaves didn’t let us see the smoke. There was a big mole of brown fur next to it. Huh, so there _were_ bears in the forest. Well, not anymore--the poor animal was exhaling his last breaths on a pool of his own blood. He made a few piteous attempts of standing up, but ultimately he gave up and died. Just out of curiosity, I glanced at Cartman, and he glanced at me. He tensed his shoulders and mouthed something that looked like “Holy shit, you were right”, but I doubted it was that.

Next to the bear there were a bunch of people. I could count at least eight. All of them wore a hooded black robe, so I couldn’t see any of their faces. One of them was holding a knife--a very large and ornate one--, stained and dripping blood next to him; he was breathing heavily and I swore his grip was shaking.

“Did you have to kill it?” someone asked, voice gruff and tainted with something similar to disappointment, but not quite that.

The armed guy pointed at the dead beast with his trembling arm. “That was a _fucking bear_!”

The first man sighed deeply, and if he shook his head, he did it lightly. He turned around to someone else. “It doesn’t matter. Bring her here.”

That someone walked away, and for a torturous second it seemed like he was approaching us, but he turned to his right and left. The rest of them arranged themselves in a circle and, with their heads to the ground, began to mutter almost as a hivemind.

At that moment I really didn’t bother in trying to understand a thing they were saying, but, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t English. It wasn’t a language I or Cartman knew.

He tapped my shoulder and then gestured, _These are a bunch of fucking weirdos. Let’s go before they spot us and want us to join their freak club._

Yeah, he managed to say all that with just his hands. Swear words included.

I replied, _Just one more minute_. He shrugged, unimpressed.

And so, we waited for a minute. Then for two. At the third minute, some distant yelling could be heard. And at the fourth minute, a girl came into the scene.

She was young. Perhaps younger than us. She wore a shirt and shorts, appropriate clothing for that weather, but hell if that was the last of her problems. Her hands were tied behind her back with a thick rope, and even from where I was standing I could see the red marks in her wrists product of the harsh friction. Her curly dark hair was a mess, but not as much as her face: pale and tired, and an ugly purple and yellow stain on her cheek. Still, her red and puffy eyes were wide and her mouth open to scream for help and for mercy. None flinched an inch when she broke into sobs.

What the fuck did those bastards think they were doing?

A man forced her on her knees in the middle of the circle and her crying increased. Her whole body was shaking and her breath was ragged and fast.

Cartman leaned into me and fisted the fabric of my jacket. “They are gonna rape her.” His words were dry and heavy.

The man wiped the blood off his knife with his black clothes.

I shook my head in a jerky movement, none of us tearing our eyes away from the heart-rending girl. No. They were not going to rape her.

The monotonous yet grotesque mantra was over, and everyone put their predator eyes in the girl, who tried to hug herself away from them all. One of the men stepped forward and the knife danced between his fingers.

“N-no, please… Please, no, no…” the girl cried out something like that, but the rest was lost in a yelp as the man yanked her hair and then a piercing scream when the knife sunk into her right shoulder.

Cartman gasped, but my breath stopped altogether.

The blade made a path from her shoulder to her inner elbow. The same happened to her left arm. It made a path from her chest to her stomach. All while she was shrieking and crying beyond humanly possible.

Finally, all sound ceased when the knife slashed her throat in a quick and fluid motion.

The small crowd of men lowered their hooded heads once more, but this time they didn’t say a thing. It looked almost like they were mourning her, if I hadn’t known better.

At this point, Cartman’s grip on my wrist was so strong my fingers were turning cold. His face was ashen and his eyes were all pupil. “Let’s fucking get out of here,” he breathed.

I didn’t react quick enough in warning him to be quiet--Cartman was already stumbling backwards and struggling to get on his feet to run. They heard it. They saw him.

“Who are you?” someone growled. His voice seemed distant still tremendously raucous when he ordered, “Get them! They saw the sacrifice!”

“CARTMAN, RUN!”

I spilt a ball of nerves and tension stuck in my throat and ran as fast as my legs let me. It wasn’t long until I overtook Cartman, but I couldn’t just leave him there, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him with me--more like pushing him. It didn’t really matter if they caught me, after all. If they caught Cartman, God help me, I would have carried that in my conscience. God, help me.

I glanced over my shoulder from time to time. The motherfuckers were fast, and little by little they were narrowing the distance, leaving bloody footprints after them. They would reach us in no time.

If I had been alone (or just with anybody else), I would have thought about something. But now we were running out of time, and I did the first thing that crossed my mind.

I leaned into Cartman to tell him, “Listen! I will try to stop them as long as I can! Go and find the guys! Get the fuck out of here, go to the police, and for fuck’s sake, keep running!”

And then, when I gave him the last push before turning around and practically charged after the robbed bastards whose faces I didn’t bother to watch and I felt a knife burying itself in my stomach, I wasn’t really sure Cartman had heard half of what I had said.

Turns out he hadn’t. The fat son of a bitch just stopped and called after me. He really chose the worst moment to start being a decent friend.

“Holy shit, Kenny!!”

“Go away, you idiot!” I gasped.

I was tackled to the floor, and a red-stained blade went straight to my head. I managed to stop it holding the attacker’s wrist. It’s not that I had any hopes in getting out alive, I just had to make sure the dumbass wasn’t staying. I turned my head around as I could, until the whole world was upside down.

My vision was already getting blurry, but I made out just enough: they had thrown down Cartman as well, and in his string of curses and shouts, I just understood a few things: “Get the fuck off me! Kenny! What is that?! Shit, shit, no!”

Sooner than later, my arms gave up and the knife slashed my throat open.

Shit. I should just have left.


	2. find what you love, and let it kill you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my new apartment is next to a cool library so i'm writing there a lot lately yass!!

I woke up with the worst headache ever. The sun through the curtains was lazily warming up my skin, and I spent a few minutes talking myself into getting out of the bed. It was like someone had filled my head with fresh concrete at now it was dry and heavy. But if I learnt something from being dead, is that living was great; in the end, I complied.

A shiver ran down my spine as soon as I stood on my feet. I yawned―my throat was sore and it hurt a little. I dragged my feet to the bathroom. The floor was not exactly clean, but I didn’t have the willpower to walk properly.

My reflection in the mirror told me how little I had rested. I had dark circles under my eyes and every time I attempted to draw a smile it turned out like something twisted and pitiful. I really looked like shit and I hated it.

I closed a hand around my neck. Last night I’d had my throat slashed, just like that poor girl. And now I was there, sound and safe, and she was not.

I thought about that often. How could someone just… disappear? Life was something too big to end just in a matter of seconds but people talked about it like it was something normal when it clearly wasn’t. That girl was dead. She was gone. Forever. She wouldn’t see her family ever again, or listen to her favourite song, or eat her favourite food.  And meanwhile I… 

What would have happened if I had done something? Would have it made a difference if I had come out to help her?

Probably not. We would have both died all the same, but I would have the false sense of having done something right. I think that’s what people call burden of conscience.

Then I remembered, much like a déjà vu.

Cartman… He was dead too, was he?

Oh, fuck me. Now I had to live with that idiot’s death on my shoulders, only because he didn’t listen to me not even once. Not when I told him to grab the phone. Not when I told him to turn left and he turned right. Not when I told him to run for his life and he stopped.

Fuck burden of conscience. I didn’t have any reason to feel guilty for him and still I did, and I thought it was the right thing to feel. And I was crying! It made me cry and it was the most ridiculous thing ever!

And not to mention Stan and Kyle. Although they didn’t admit it, they worried about Cartman. At least I thought they did. Their stomachs would be twirling a bit and they would be thinking about everything they could have done to stop it but couldn’t because they weren’t there with him but  _ I was  _ and  _ shit _ why was it so frustrating?! Why couldn’t I just get it out of my head?!

I supposed is what I deserved.

After a cold shoulder that did nothing for my headache, I dressed up and grabbed my backpack. Karen was already off to school and my parents were most likely sleeping the hangover off, so I just grabbed something to eat and left without saying goodbye. I didn’t feel like having the ‘where were you last night’ talk anyway.

I had plenty of time to think on my way. It sucked, because I didn’t want to think anymore. But if I tried to ignore the remorse and nausea ( _ tried  _ being key word here), there were a lot of things I had to ponder. Regarding the girl, regarding that bunch of motherfuckers.

Who was she? She was younger, so probably I hadn’t noticed her in high school―perhaps she wasn’t from South Park. She didn’t seem to know the men who killed her. Then again, it could just be that she was from South Park but the guys weren’t. Or they were both from here. Or neither. The only thing I had for sure is that I didn’t recognize any face I saw.

And what was all that about a sacrifice? Murdering a young―probably virgin―girl with a dagger seemed too cliché. Had I been a sacrifice too? What about―?

I sighed. I just couldn’t wrap my mind on everything that had happened. It was better if I gave up and hoped that had been a one-time thing.

(But I knew it wasn’t).

It took me longer than expected to arrive at the bus stop. My eyes were glued to the snow. I couldn’t look at them in the eye, because most likely they wouldn’t want to look at me in the eye. I had no idea what they were thinking about me. Maybe they believed I had left Cartman to die. In the best case, I hadn’t been with them at all. Ugh, what was I saying? That was even worse.

“Shit! My head fucking hurts!”

I snapped my head up at the voice.

Holy. Shit.

Cartman was there. Physically there. He was standing next to Stan and Kyle and he was whining about the cold and his head and Kyle was berating him, acknowledging his presence, and he was breathing and standing on his feet and…

Holy shit…

“How much did you drink, dude?” Stan asked him. “I can’t believe you just passed out.”

Cartman scoffed and made a face to the snow. “I don’t know. Everything is a bit blurry. I think I was running from the bear.”

“We made that up, you idiot.” Kyle shook his head, and Cartman turned his head to him.

“Did you? Because I  _ swear  _ I remember a bear.”

I ran to them. Stan noticed me first, and he cocked an eyebrow and nudged Kyle to look at me as well. I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Either they were angry or I had put my clothes on my pyjamas again. That wouldn’t have been surprising, really.

Cartman yelped at my sudden loud voice. “Holy fuck, dude! I can’t believe you’re alive! What happened? How did you escape?”

He stared at me with a blank face for at least five seconds. Then he looked at Stan and Kyle, who just looked at each other and shrugged. He shrugged as well. I shrugged too because I didn’t understand what was going on. Then Cartman cleared his throat and knitted his eyebrows.

“Who the hell are you?”

I blinked at him.

Okay. I got it. He was mad at me because I had “let him go on his own”. I would probably be mad too, but I had saved that fat ass… and he couldn’t possibly remember that. But in my mind, he was being irrational, and my mind was pretty fucked up at that moment.

I sighed. Speaking to Cartman was no longer an option, so I addressed the other two. “Guys, did you go to the police last night?”

Stan gave me the same look. In Cartman I had mistaken it for resentment, but in them I could see very clearly it was pure confusion. He muttered something and then spoke up, “Why would we― Dude, who are you?”

To say I was bewildered comes up short. To say the blood in my veins became stone comes up short.

“I…” I rubbed the back of my neck. It was difficult to speak all of sudden. “You guys― you don’t know me?”

They shook their heads firmly. Oh shit, it was not a joke. There was no trace of amusement in their faces. And I knew my friends―they were shit at these kind of things. 

…Because I knew them, didn’t I? 

I realized my head was somewhere else when Kyle asked me again who I was. They were expecting an answer, and I didn’t have one. I eyed the street, the bus was approaching. Dying again didn’t seem like a stupid idea now.

“Oh, I know,” Stan suddenly said, his face didn’t reflect the cheer in his voice. “You’re the new kid, aren’t you? I think Mackey said something about that.”

Alright, that had to do.

“I, uh, sure. Yeah. I’m new in town.” I swallowed down heavily. God, I hadn’t been this nervous about meeting people since kindergarten. “Sorry. It’s just… you look like some people I know, and, well, y’know, I-I just got excited.”

“We  _ all  _ look like people you know?” Kyle wondered, his bullshit alarm dangerously about to set off.

I gave him a shaky grin and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Uh, that’s weird,” he just said. Thankfully, Cartman cut off whatever he was going to say.

“And what’s your name, new guy?”

“Uh, Kenny,” I quickly answered. “Kenny McCormick.” I sighed mentally when my name didn’t trigger an odd reaction in them. When was the alarm clock ringing, again?

“McCormick? Hey, there are McCormicks in South Park,” Stan said, a lightbulb turning on above him. “Are you related to them or something?”

Honestly, at that point, I didn’t even know.

“N-no, I don’t think so,” I ended up saying. I thought that was going to cause some trouble later on, but that was a problem for future Kenny.

“That’s nice,” Cartman said. “If that were the case, you’d be known as the poor kid forever.”

_ Oh, you don’t say?  _ I bit my tongue.

The bus arrived. Kyle clasped my shoulder and ushered me in. “Don’t worry, new kid, we’ll show you around. I’m Kyle, by the way.”

I thanked him and I really meant it.

They invited me to sit with them, and I was momentarily glad until I realized they wanted to ask me about my life. I’m not a good liar, actually, but I think I managed that pretty well.

I told them I had moved into South Park because my mother got a job at the nursing home. After Stan’s grandfather passed away, none of them went to that place, so I was safe. Then I said that my father was a writer and he barely went out, that I was an only child and that we had bought a house ‘around here’. Eventually, the questions were more about me and less about my background, which was good. They were easier to answer because I didn’t have to come up with a lie on the spot. Besides, maybe if they knew a little more about me, they would remember me spontaneously, like in cartoons when people hit their heads and forgot things and then hit their heads again to remember everything. Cartoon logic was not a reliable knowledge source, but I couldn’t grapple on anything else.

The conversation went easy. They didn’t remember me, but for a brief moment, it was just like we were still childhood friends.

Shortly before arriving at our school, Stan, sat behind me, leaned into my seat and asked me, “Have you met our principal yet, Kenny?”

I shook my head. They exchanged a wary look. I knew exactly what that meant.

“He’s an asshole,” Cartman yawned. “You’d better watch your words around him. He will beat the shit out of you.”

I pretended to be surprised and a little scared. “Really? Weak.” Again, I am a bad liar, so it just looked like I was mocking him. Not a big deal.

A sense of déjà vú hit me as soon as I stepped off the bus.

It came to my mind that here none knew me―I was the new kid, the novelty. I felt how my stomach knotted itself; I wasn’t used to be the center of attention, and just thinking about all those eyes on me made my hands sweat. The new opportunity had some thrill as well, but that only made me more nervous. If I only knew what I had to do to get in the terms I used to be with everyone… 

A step forward is all I could give before I had Cartman’s arm around my shoulders, making me trip on my own feet.

“You just stick with us and you’ll be fine, McCormick,” he proudly said. “We’re like the big deal of school.” I stifled a snicker. The worst part is that he actually believed his words.

“Yeah,” it’s all I said, but in a way that didn’t sound too convinced. From now on, I had to be careful with that manipulative jerk.

“Do you have our schedule?” Kyle asked me, barely lifting his gaze from his phone.

“No.” Shit, not even the old Kenny McCormick did.

He looked at me and then showed me his phone. The schedule was on the screen. “We have English in the first period. It’s cool because the teacher doesn’t care if you doze off. The worst thing today will be fine arts―the teacher’s a bitch.”

“Uh, I think I picked music.”

He grimaced at his phone. “Lucky you.” No, I wasn’t.

Crossing the doors of the building was exactly as it always had been. None looked at me twice, and though I knew it was because anyone really gave a shit about us, I dared to think it was because they remembered me. Then I overheard things such as “Hey, isn’t that guy in the orange parka new?” “Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen him around.” “Oh. Cool.” And that’s how every hope vanished. How about I lay Hollywood aside and focus on writing children books?

We stopped next to Stan’s locker before it was time for the class. Butters met us there. When he noticed me, his eyes lit up like a kid spotting a present under the Christmas tree. It was endearing, though I couldn’t help but feel like a confused puppy with a ribbon on his head.

“Howdy, new kid!” he introduced himself. “I’m Butters, nice to meet ya’!” He then extended the arm for a handshake, which was quite loose. Butters was more of a hugger. We told him to stop doing that to strangers because it was awkward, but honestly, I wouldn’t have minded a hug at that moment.

During the first period, Mr. Nichols had me introducing myself to the whole class. I thought I had done it well (as well as something so trivial can be done), but then Cartman said the whole class thought I was an asshole. “Birds of a feather flock together, I guess,” I said. Most people laughed, so I think it was a good start.

The second period was less interesting. Geometry lessons were so boring we didn’t even try to spice it up with chatters or games. We just slept on our books and looked out the window for an hour straight. The most remarkable thing is that I received three paper notes. 

_ “don’t mind Cartman, he’s a douchebag _ __  
_ honestly I don’t know why we keep hanging out with him. _ _  
_ __ \- Stan”

_ “See you in lunch! _ _  
_ _ \- Butters :)” _

_ “jokes about german sausage are the wurst” _

I don’t know who that was from.

 

I had the opportunity to meet everyone else during lunch in the cafeteria. The table was the same. The food was the same. The people were the same. Everything but me.

I was sat between Kyle and Butters. I couldn’t be hungry today, but it would have awkward if I just sat and saw everybody eat, so I just pushed around the limp pasta in the tray.

Craig and those guys arrived with their trays and sat down across us. My friends paid little attention to them while they did size us up. That’s when I realized how exhausting was this whole thing going to be, that I had no desires to do this now.

Clyde let his tray fall on the table carelessly, some of his cola spilling. “Kenny, right?”

I smirked, gladly surprised he knew my name already. “News fly fast, apparently.”

“I’m Clyde,” he beamed. “These are Token, Craig and Tweek.”

Each of them said hi to me. But Tweek, who greeted me in his own twitchy way.

“It’s cool we finally have someone new around here,” Kyle pointed out to them, something he had already said before to us, at the hallway. “This was getting kind of vapid.” Everyone nodded instead of asking what the hell that meant.

“Why are you in South Park, Kenny?” I ran a hand through my hair. Oh boy, all these questions again. “Did you burn down your old school or something?”

“Jesus!” Tweek shivered and reasserted the hold of his fork. “You’re not going to burn down the school, are you?!” Craig shot Clyde a mildly dreadful look for asking such a thing and then patted Tweek’s knee. That only made him shiver again.

“What’s the big deal?” Cartman said with his mouth full. “Butters did it and he’s still here.”

“Yup!” He smiled as if that was something we had to acknowledge in a positive way. I wanted to correct him so bad.

“I’m not going to burn down the school, for the record.” I tried to take a bite of my lunch, but my indisposed stomach complained right away. “My Mom got a job in town, that’s all.”

Clyde seemed disappointed. He didn’t question anything else―nothing compromising, at least. Only trivial things such as “Do you play baseball?” when they referred to the high school team or “Do you have a girlfriend?” (and Clyde’s subtle “Are you gay?” when I said no).

I managed to relax through the irrelevant chatter. Laugh a bit. Crack some jokes. Eat half of my lunch. Feel good for a few minutes. 

But of course, I never forgot what was my condition here. All the questions, the curious stares as if I was a zoo animal, the ‘newbie’ and ‘rookie’ nicknames―they didn’t let me forget.

I didn’t know if I was going to stand the feeling of being a foreigner too much time.

“Hey Kahl,” Cartman called out during a stretch of silence, “I checked the ‘rusty’ thing you told me yesterday. You can say wood is rusty too, you dumbass.”

“Aw, really?” Kyle knitted his eyebrows and watched his tray intensely. Anyone would’ve thought Cartman just said the tray was rusty. “Damnit. And what was the other word you say?”

Cartman looked at him, his face a blank space, before gazing down at the leftovers of his food as well. “Huh. Weird. I can’t remember.”

 

For some reason, everyone thought fine arts was going to be way easier than music. At that moment I didn’t really care about that, so I just picked music because I liked it more while everyone else went to another classroom. Despite how much the universe hates me, sometimes it had its little gestures, like making Mrs. Sanger the biggest bitch in the history of South Park and making Mr. Creasy a lazy teacher who just left us the instruments and told us to “find the music”.

For an hour, it was just me and the carob guitar.

Okay, okay, I was not always alone. Tweek chose music too because some abstract pictures disturbed him. I used to talk to him while he practised with the piano. Now whenever I tried to establish a conversation he just glanced any other direction and replied with dull, short sentences until I left. It kind of hurt to see how uneasy he was around me. 

The guitar was heavier than usual in my arms. They had given me the biggest one. I struggled for a bit, trying to find a comfortable position until the instrument was lifted from my hands by some mysterious force.

“It’s better if you just hold it like this.”

Heidi walked around me and placed the body of the guitar in my lap, instructing me to hold it by the neck, and I quote, “like it is the abnormally big baby of the Spanish guy your wife cheated you with.” As ridiculous as that sounded, the grip was way comfier than any of the postures I had tried.

“Oh yeah,” I smiled at her, “much better. Thank you.”

“No problem,” she smiled as well. I wasn’t used to seeing her smiling―or seeing her whatsoever. After she broke up with Cartman all those years ago, she spent a while putting her life together. The next thing I know? She didn’t want anything to do with Cartman, and that involved his friends.

Looking at her now, I realized she never went back to be the slim girl she was before Cartman. Now she was just chubbier than most of the girls in our class, but definitely not in an unhealthy way.

“I’m Kenny, by the way,” I said. Hey, new kid could use a new friend.

“Heidi.” She went to grab her own guitar and took a seat next to me. “Aren’t you used to guitars, new kid?”

“I am, actually. It’s just I prefer smaller ones.” Just like the one Heidi was carrying. My old good guitar. I sighed, she understood (as much as she could possibly understand) and giggled.

“This is your first day, right?” she said while she tuned the strings. “How is it going?”

I shrugged. “Not bad, but not good either. I didn’t think this is how the day was going to go.”

She leaned forward to give me leery eyes. “Let me guess: this morning when you woke up you believed you would get here and become the king of high school, or something.”

I chuckled, something bitter stuck on my voice. Oh, if she just knew the half of it… 

“Nah. I would have settle with duke.”

It was her time to laugh. “Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine.” She scraped the strings―it sounded good. Then she bit her lip and cleared her throat. “On a second thought… Can I give you a little bit of advice?”

What she was going to say wasn’t a mystery. I told her to go on, anyway.

“There’s this group in the school, three guys in particular. They are not bad news per se…” She looked like she wanted to say ‘scratch that’, “It’s just… They are like a magnet. All the weird things always happen to them. You should be careful.”

My head shook slowly unwittingly. “I think it’s too late for me.” I eyed Tweek and she got the picture, gasping a tiny ‘oh’.

“I’m late, huh?” She sighed. “Well, the warning stays the same. Be careful, Kenny.”

 

By the end of the last period, when the bell rang and some kid yelled “We’re free!”, it’s when all the Xs of the equation I had been ignoring all day hit me one after one, leaving me breathless.

Okay, the first day had been fairly good, but what about tomorrow? And the day after tomorrow? And the day after the day after tomorrow? I couldn’t be the new kid forever, could I? I had the damn right of having a past.

I restrained myself enough as I walked out the school along with everyone else, and as long as I got the chance, I waved goodbye to Stan and Kyle and I ran home as fast as I could.

My family. My family was all I had left. If they remembered me, I would have a small possibility of getting to the bottom of this madness. If they didn’t… I would be alone. Alone like I had never been. Alone as a blurry face in an old photo, nobody ever watched anymore. Alone for real.

My heart pumped in my throat when I stood in front of my house, not because of the race, exactly. My hands were shaking and I giggled because how absurd was this shit? I was nervous about asking my family if they knew who I was? For fuck’s sake, they had to know me!

They… They just had.

I knocked at the door. Whatever logic I came up with for not using my keys then I can’t remember it now. I could hear the TV, so it was obvious Dad was home. I just hoped he wasn’t blackout drunk.

He opened the door and immediately scowled. But that was no reason for forming a judgement. My father scowled for a lot of things. Perhaps the sun bothered him.

“What do you want?”

I swallowed heavy. “D-do you know who I am?”

He cocked an eyebrow and then turned his head inside the house. “Carol! Do you know who’s this kid?!”

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no, no, no.

I couldn’t  _ fucking win!! _

“-are you?”

I snapped my head up. Apparently, I had been looking at my shoes like an idiot for half a minute, clenching my fist so hard my knuckles turned white and my fingertips purple.

Mom was there, Karen too. They had the same eyes everyone else had had with me today. But now, for the first time, it hurt. I never understood how people could be hurt by mere looks until know. If I have to be poetic and shit, it felt as if I had held my hand on the fire for too long and my skin was now numb. I could tell it was bad from the fire, but when I moved it away the pain slowly crawled in.

It  _ hurt _ .

“I’m sorry.” My throat was dry and my voice hoarse. “I think I got the wrong house.”

Dad just shrugged and closed the door with a slam. It was pointless to stay there and hear the way my family wondered who was that weird kid, so I left.

First I walked, then I ran. 

The cold sweat blended in hot tears. The skin was on the fire and I was afraid to draw it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm almost finished with next chapter, but even if i try to upload weekly don't expect it to be a thing because i have issues, procrastination issues  
> commitment issues, perhaps  
> i will do it, though, i'm sure!

**Author's Note:**

> i really, really, REALLY hope i'll continue with this but college is a bitch and doesn't let me breathe  
> y'all fancy english speakers try to write a full report about the reasons spanish is supposedly a sexist language (i mean, i don't even know what i think about that, somebody help me)  
> i'm trying to write more often anyway, so let's just cross fingers!!


End file.
